Malaysia

Kids' family travel tips and why they love family vacations. 9-year-old Winnie Mastores has recently become a bit of an expert on Asia having just spent over 5 months traveling around the region with her mum Tahli and brothers Gus (6) and Myles (3). Winnie may not have been attending school while she was visiting Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar and Thailand, but along the way she and her brothers used currency conversion and kilometres covered to practice their maths and blogging to practice their literacy skills. And Winnie learnt one of the most important skills of all – how to use travel to push herself out of her comfort zone.

How to do family travel in Penang, Malaysia with kids. Penang is one of Malaysia’s most popular cultural tourist destinations. Famed for its street food, street art and gorgeous heritage architecture, a family holiday to Penang is like stepping back into the Malaysia of yesteryear. A few days in Penang with kids can easily be spent shopping, eating and exploring the streets, posing for pictures and creating lots of happy family memories.

Amazing adventure holidays with children in Sabah, Malaysia. The island of Borneo in East Malaysia is one the hidden gems of Southeast Asia tourist attractions. In the state of Sabah, kids can see wild orangutans and elephants up close and personal in their natural tropical environment. For a great adventure holidays for children that will take them off the beaten track and back to nature, Sabah is one of the best holiday destinations in Asia.

Introducing withlocals.com, a travel website that allows you to sightsee, shop and eat like a local and learn all the city secrets of your family travel destination. If you’ve ever found yourself in a foreign city inside another international chain restaurant, you’ll be familiar with the frustration of feeling like you aren’t really accessing the country’s authentic culture beyond the tourist trail. Withlocals is a travel website that allows you stop being a tourist and start experiencing life like a local with their comprehensive hook up service that allows you to meet a local who can show you around and give you their insider travel tips.

Traveling with kids doesn’t have to mean they are always eating chicken nuggets and fries. Nor should what your kids eat stop you from venturing to developing countries further afield. Even with kids on the road, you can still sample hawker and street fare as the locals do – on a small stool on the roadside – rather than feeling restricted to the hotel buffet. As proof, here are the suitcases&strollers family travel tips for 10 Asian street foods the kids will love.

Information about the prevalence of rabies in Asia for families traveling with kids. Rabies is not a disease you commonly hear about or associate with family travel with kids, but it is something you should be keeping on your radar. In fact, children are at higher risk of contracting rabies as they are attracted to animals and less likely to be able to avoid scratches and bites from affected animals. For anyone traveling to Asia with kids including destinations like Bali, Thailand, Vietnam, Fiji or the Philippines, here are some travel tips from International Medical Clinic in Singapore for how to avoid rabies coming into contact with your family.

Malaysia beach resorts may not be as famous as their Southeast Asian neighbours, but this means that the marine life can often be more pristine. If you’re keen on snorkeling in Malaysia or SCUBA diving somewhere that’s an easy commute from Singapore, you should certainly be look at Rawa Island Resort says Adam Cheang. The Resident Divemaster says the reef there is some of the most beautiful and diverse he has ever seen – and many of the fish can be spotted just walking in offshore. He takes suitcases&strollers on a virtual tour of what it feels like to snorkel and dive at Rawa Island Resort with kids – get your goggles and swimsuit ready as you’ll definitely be inspired.

Destination Guide: KL. Kuala Lumpur with kids is like a layer cake: its modern and sleek air-conditioned business heart coexists with the nostalgic pockets that have changed little in the past fifty years. A family holiday in the capital of Malaysia with kids is the ultimate Southeast Asian city experience. It’s busy, crowded and very hot. You can visit state-of-the-art kids’ attractions followed by a street lunch in a stall from a different era. And everywhere you go the people are friendly, there are memorable cultural experiences to be had and it’s a hedonistic sensory experience. Here is why you should definitely plan to visit Kuala Lumpur with kids.

Healthy meals for kids don’t have to disappear on family holidays. At an all inclusive family friendly accommodation like Rawa Island Resort, the children won’t be surviving on a pizza diet. Rawa has set up a very convenient buffet system for parents which means at every meal there is always plenty of homemade food prepared across a range of cuisine types as well as fresh fruit and vegetables to keep everyone happy. Here’s why, when it comes to great family holidays and mealtimes, the kids (and you) will love Rawa Island Resort.

Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, is a heaving, sweaty, tropical metropolis which means it is chock full of fun things to do with children. Affectionately known as KL, the city has a great mix of culture and modernity to make it a fascinating place to explore. Blogger Anna Mehta of Mum On The Move lives in KL with kids Arran (5) and Sienna (18 months). She shares her insider city secrets for what makes KL with kids such a fantastic family holiday destination.

On the beach holidays are some of the most relaxing for parents and most memorable for kids. Just over the Malaysian border and a short road trip with kids from Singapore, Rawa Island Resort is a popular family resort because it has just the right combination of chillax vibe, activities for the entire family and entertainment for kids that require minimal supervision. This is one of the best family beaches you will find anywhere near Singapore and because it is such a family friendly resort, you may just never want to leave.

Family holiday destinations should always involve LEGO, says our little friend Levi Cuthbert. At the tender age of 5, Levi is something of a jetsetter travelling regularly to places like Bali, Italy, Malaysia, Thailand and all over Australia with his parents and sister Zoey (3). This precocious preschooler tells suitcases&strollers about his favourite family friendly holidays and what made them so great (hint: coloured bricks may have been involved).

Family holiday destinations that involve sun, sand, beach and lots of laughs are the best, says Josie Burke (11). She regularly travels three or four times a year to places such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, sometimes with her siblings Chloe (9) and Hugh (6) and sometimes independently on school trips. She gives suitcases&strollers her candid opinion on the best (and worst) bits of family travel with kids.

Penang with kids is more than just all inclusive family resorts. Michele Chan-Thomson of Malaysian Meanders also highly rates Penang for its jungles, historical feel and famed street food that make it a perfect for active holidays for families. She lives on the Malaysian beach island with her three children Clark (15), Brad (12) and Maria (9) and tells suitcases&strollers why Penang with kids makes for family holidays with a difference.

Which are the essential travel vaccinations you need for visiting countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand with kids? Dr. Michael Rodger of International Medical Clinic (IMC) gives suitcases&strollers his travel tips for the essential list of travel vaccinations for Southeast Asia and why you need them if you are traveling with kids.

If you’re planning to cross the border overland between Singapore and Malaysia with kids, the process is very straightforward. You don’t have to sit for hours in long queues among hundred of other cars. Follow this simple suitcases&strollers travel advisor and you’ll be on your way to a fabulous family holiday destination in no time via the overland Singapore and Malaysia border crossing, rather than having to get on a plane.

What are the hottest family holiday destinations among suitcases&strollers readers? Where are people going, what are they doing and where do the kids want to go on family vacation? This month suitcases&strollers turns one and and in the last year we've covered kid-friendly destinations from the Peruvian Amazon to Iceland, theme parks to beach resorts. To celebrate our first anniversary, suitcases&strollers brings you the round up of the most popular of these kid-friendly places to travel, as chosen by you. It's been an amazing journey taking you on these virtual trips around the world. We can't wait to see what the next year brings, but for now, here's the round up for 2013.

Sean Pizel (7) lives with his brothers Alex (10) and Joshua (5) in Singapore. The family travels multiple times a year and makes a particular effort to organise staycations where they rent a hotel on the island and all bunk in together for the weekend – a fun way to do a quick family holiday. He tells suitcases&strollers about travelling to places like Vietnam, Australia and Malaysia with kids…from a child’s perspective.

Sometimes the best way to figure out if it’s worth visiting somewhere is to see it for yourself. If you’re looking for family holiday destinations in southern Malaysia with kids, LEGOLAND Malaysia is a theme park certainly worth adding to add to the to-do list. They have just recently opened the LEGOLAND Hotel and a full LEGOLAND waterpark which now makes it’s a very viable two or three day kids holiday activity. And because of its location right on the Malaysian border, it’s one of the hottest places to visit from Singapore with kids too. Here’s a sneak peek of what to expect at Johor Bahru's most popular amusement park.

Ollie Brown (6) is a British expatriate living in Singapore with his parents and little sister, Lottie (5). As well as being a keen rugby player and very good at LEGO, he has done quite a bit of travel around Europe and Asia and the family usually vacay internationally three to four times a year. For him, the greatest travel tip for successfully traveling with kids is for the family to spend time together, simple as that. He tells suitcases&strollers about his favourite family holiday memories (with a little help from his mother).